Ex  Uibrtfi 


SEYMOUR  DURST 


When  you  leave,  please  leave  this  book 

Because  it  has  been  said 
"Ever'thincj  comes  t'  him  who  waits 

Except  a  loaned  book." 


ROCHESTER 
THE  CITY 
PHOTOGRAPHIC 


ROCHESTER 

THE  CITY  PHOTOGRAPHIC 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE  EASTMAN  KODAK  CO,  AT  ROCHESTER, 
NEW  YORK,  ON  THE  OCCASION  OF  TWENTY-NINTH 
ANNUAL  CONVENTION  OF  THE  PHOTOGRAPHERS'  ASSOCI- 
ATION OF  AMERICA-  JULY  NINETEEN  TO  TWENTY-FOUR, 
NINETEEN  HUNDRED  AND  NINE 


ROCHESTER,  THE  CITY  PHOTOGRAPHIC 

IRST  came  man — and  then  pictures.  No 
matter  what  the  race, — Egyptian,  Aztec, 
true  Mongolian,  or  nomadic  Indian, —  there 
were  pictures,  ages  of  pictures,  before  there 
was  a  written  language.  The  rude  draw- 
ing of  stone  upon  stone,  of  pigment  upon 
birch  bark,  or  the  laborious  carving  with  a 
whale's  tooth  upon  wood  all  prove  that  in 
man  there  is  a  primitive  and  inherent 
instinct  toward  the  delineation  of  the  objects  that  surround 
and  interest  him.  From  childhood  his  appetite  for  pic- 
tures is  insatiable.  His  first  books  are  picture  books. 
The  magazines  he  buys  are  illustrated — profusely  so. 
The  few  that  carry  no  pictures  are  minor  in  importance 
so  far  as  popularity  is  concerned,  though  they  may  be, 
and,  indeed,  often  are,  of  the  highest  literary  merit.  /|$ 
And  in  this  picture  world,  what  a  part  photography  is 
playing  1  Within  the  memory  of  those  yet  living  there  was 
the  first  photographic  portrayal  of  the  human  face.  An 
exposure  of  five  minutes  in  the  full  glare  of  bright  sunlight 
was  required,  and  the  results  were  the  wonder  of  an 
astonished  world.  Our  fathers  wondered  at  the  photog- 
raphers' necromancy.  Our  children  look,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  upon  pictures  that  show,  with  minute  sharpness, 
a  humming  bird  upon  the  wing,  and  moving  pictures 
entertain  or  amuse  them,  but  they  no  longer  marvel  at  the 
methods  by  which  the  pictures  are  made. 

The  moving  picture — Did  you  ever  consider  the  stupen- 
dousness  of  this  single  branch  of  photography?  A  mov- 
ing picture  projecting  machine  shows  fifteen  pictures  per 
second,  nine  hundred  a  minute,  or  over  25,000  in  the 


ROCHESTER,  THE  CITY  PHOTOGRAPHIC 


course  of  a  show  of  average  duration,  and  there  are  over 
5,000  moving  picture  shows  operating  in  the  United  States 
alone,  all  of  which  change  pictures  frequently.  Every 
month's  consumption  of  film  means  a  positive  print  for 
every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  country.  But  the 
moving  picture  is  by  no  means  an  American  institution ; 
it  has  taken  possession  of  Europe,  has  fascinated  the  Asi- 
atic, charmed  the  South  Sea  Islander,  invaded  the  Trans- 
vaal, and,  along  with  the  phonograph,  has  entertained 
princes  and  potentates  as  well  as  newsboys.  And  in  the 
Eastman  factories  is  made  more  than  ninety  per  cent  of  all 
the  film,  both  negative  and  positive,  that  is  used  for  mov- 
ing picture  purposes  the  world  over. 

And  the  Kodaker — literally  he  is  numbered  by  the  mil- 
lions now — uses  his  film  by  the  thousands  of  miles,  and  he, 
or  those  who  do  the  work  for  him,  consume  papers  by  the 
thousands  of  acres,  and  chemicals  by  the  train-load.  And 
what  does  all  this  mean  for  the  professional?  It  means 
that  he  has  the  benefit  of  a  plant  equipment  and  an 
organization  that  would  be  impossible  without  the  moving 
picture  and  amateur  business  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the 
expense.  It  means  the  utmost  skill  in  every  department, 
perfect  facility  for  scientific  and  practical  experiment, 
special  machinery,  buildings  of  special  construction — in 
short,  it  means  that  anything  that  can  help  to  make  the 
perfect  product  can  be  and  is  done.  It  means  that 
Rochester,  the  City  Photographic,  has  become  the  Mecca 
to  which  the  inventor  of  improved  photographic  processes 
or  apparatus  invariably  turns.  And  in  the  Eastman  facto- 
ries is  the  practical  experience  that  can  sift  the  wheat  from 
the  chaff  and  give  to  the  world  that  which  is  worth  while. 


ROCHESTER,  THE  CITY  PHOTOGRAPHIC 


Fun  is  sometimes  poked  at  photographic  manufacturers 
on  the  ground  that  so  little  silver  is  required  to  cover  a 
photographic  plate.  But  the  fact  remains  that  at  our 
Kodak  Park  plant  we  are  the  largest  consumers  of  silver 
— outside  the  mint— in  the  United  States  and  probably 
in  the  world,  the  consumption  of  pure  bullion  amounting 
to  no  less  than  a  ton  a  week. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  thoroughness  of  our  equipment 
and  how  our  film  business  has  helped  in  perfecting  our 
other  products,  take  this  very  subject  of  silver  bullion, 
which  we,  of  course,  convert  to  silver  nitrate.  Back  of  the 
perfect  photographic  product,  perfect  salts  and  perfect 
chemicals  are  absolutely  essential.  When  we  cannot  secure 
them  in  the  desired  purity,  we  ma^e  thtm.  Nitric  acid  is 
used,  in  connection  with  silver  bullion,  to  make  silver 
nitrate. 

We  make  the  nitric  acid;  we  go  back  of  that  even  and 
make  the  sulphuric  acid  from  which,  in  combination  with 
nitre,  the  nitric  acid  is  made.  This  acid  plant  made 
necessary  an  enormous  stack  to  carry  off  the  fumes.  This 
stack  is  366  feet  high,  the  highest  in  America.  This  acid 
plant  Was  made  possible  by  reason  of  our  film  business, 
because  the  nitric  acid  which  we  make  is  used  not  only 
for  nitrating  the  silver  but  is  consumed  also  in  enormous 
quantities  for  cutting  the  raw  cotton  which  forms  the  trans- 
parent film  base.  T 

We  are  accustomed  in  this  country  to  stupendous  fig  - 
ures— and  when  they  are  applied  to  the  output  of  a  steel 
mill  or  to  the  tonnage  of  a  railroad  we  think  not  so  much 
of  it,  because  the  products  themselves  are  large.  But  a 
moving-picture  negative  is  such  a  tiny  little  thing,  a  post 


ROCHESTER,  THE  CITY  PHOTOGRAPHIC 


card  is  so  small,  an  8  x  1 0  plate  is  so  insignificant  as  com- 
pared with  a  steel  rail,  and  a  camera  so  unpretentious 
alongside  of  a  locomotive  or  an  automobile,  that  we  don't 
look  for  mechanically  big  things  in  a  photographic  factory. 
In  photography  we  think  in  grains  and  ounces  and  square 
inches — yet  so  great  is  the  consumption  of  the  various 
products,  that  to  contemplate  the  Eastman  works  we  must 
think  in  acres  and  tons.  In  our  Kodak  Park  plant  twenty- 
three  acres  of  floor  space  are  given  up  to  the  manufacture  of 
sensitized  photographic  goods;  the  new  plate  building  now 
under  construction  will  bring  this  up  to  a  total  of  more 
than  twenty-eight  acres;  while  our  other  Rochester  facto- 
ries, with  combined  floor  area  of  over  nine  acres,  bring 
our  total  area  of  floor  space  devoted  exclusively  to  the 
photographic  business  to  more  than  thirty-seven  acres  in 
Rochester  alone — and  there  is  still  more  under  construc- 
tion. There  are  nearly  4,000  Rochester  employees,  and 
the  capacity  of  our  boilers  is  over  6,700  horse  power. 
The  refrigerating  machines  at  Kodak  Park  have  a  cooling 
power  equal  to  the  melting  of  1,920  tons  of  ice  daily. 
The  works  there  are  operated  by  743  motors,  varying  in 
power  from  Vl2  to  75  horse  power,  and  these,  with  the 
7,000  incandescent  lights,  are  furnished  current  by  five 
engine-driven  electric  generators  with  a  capacity  of  1 ,800 
kilowatts,  or  3,000  horse  power.  In  the  Kodak  Park 
grounds,  consisting  of  forty-three  acres,  are  two  and  a  third 
miles  of  water  mains,  one  and  a  third  miles  of  brick  pave- 
ment, and  three-fourths  of  a  mile  of  railroad  trackage. 

Over  on  another  page  there's  a  picture  of  thelitde35-horse- 
power  Buckeye  engine,  which  twenty  years  ago  drove  the 
entire  Eastman  plant.    To-day,  'tis  but  a  pigmy  beside  the 


ROCHESTER,  THE  CITY  PHOTOGRAPHIC 


giants  at  Kodak  Park ;  indeed,  it  would  fall  far  short  of  fur- 
nishing half  the  power  for  the  smallest  of  our  present-day 
factories.  Such  a  growth  must  have  back  of  it  some 
underlying  germ,  some  basic  principle,  some  sure  foun- 
dation. Much  has  been  said  of  plant  and  machinery  and 
acreage  and  horse  power.  But  above  them  all  is  some- 
thing more  potent  —  Man  Power.  Tis  the  Spirit  of  Doing 
Things  Better  —  therein  lies  the  secret  of  this  upbuilding 
of  the  world's  greatest  photographic  industry. 

This  little  book  is  published  that  Rochester's  guests, 
the  professional  photographers,  may  carry  away  with  them 
something  tangible  to  help  them  keep  fresh  in  their  mem- 
ories a  few  of  the  things  which  they  saw  while  in  the  City 
Photographic.  If  their  visit  to  the  works,  and  what  we 
have  told  in  this  brochure,  has  impressed  them  with  the 
thought  that  'tis  to  the  amateur  and  to  the  moving  picture 
that  we  owe  the  great  bulk  of  our  business,  we  still  want 
the  professional  to  remember  that  his  is  the  business  we 
cherish.  'Twas  for  him  that  we  first  made  goods ;  he  has  the 
technique,  the  mastery  of  the  art  to  best  appreciate  our 
most  successful  efforts,  and  he  has  the  knowledge  that  en- 
ables him  to  criticise  justly  when  our  efforts  fall  short 
The  professional  photographer  fits  into  our  plan  of  progress. 
Just  as  the  other  business,  by  its  sheer  bulk,  enables  us  to 
give  to  the  professional  the  benefit  of  a  marvelous  plant 
and  of  high-priced  talent,  so  does  the  professional  keep  us 
ever  on  our  mettle. 

His  interests  and  ours  are  closely  interwoven.  He,  too,  is 
advancing.  His  art,  his  work  in  the  world,  is  daily  be- 
coming more  fully  appreciated.  May  this  visit  of  the 
photographer  to  the  home  of  the  manufacturer  prove 


ROCHESTER,  THE  CITY  PHOTOGRAPHIC 


mutually  helpful.  May  it  be  an  aid  to  both  in  promoting 
the  Spirit  of  Doing  Things  Better. 

EASTMAN  KODAK  CO. 

Rochester,  N.  Y. 
July,  1909. 


SHRUBBERY  AT  KODAK  PARK 


IN  this  boiler  room  is  the  seat  of  the  energy  that  driven 
and  lights,  and  cools,  and  heats  the  Kodak  Park  Plant. 
There  are  in  this  power  house  sixteen  boilers  with  an  actual 
capacity  of  6,000  horse  power.  Above  the  boilers  are 
located  coal  bunkers  having  a  capacity  of  3,200  tons,  from 
which  the  coal  drops  through  chutes  to  mechanical  stokers. 
About  eighty  tons  of  coal  are  burned  per  day,  the  waste 
gases  passing  off  through  fuel  economizers. 


LIERE  is  shown  one  of  the  ten  refrigerating  machines  used 
for  controlling  temperatures  in  various  parts  of  the 
plant,  the  total  cooling  capacity  of  these  machines  being 
equal  to  that  of  the  melting  of  1 ,920  tons  of  ice  in  twenty- 
four  hours. 


'"THERE  is  practically  no  shafting  at  Kodak  Park,  the 
machinery  being  driven  by  seven  hundred  and  forty- 
three  motors  ranging  in  size  from  one-twelfth  to  seventy-five 
horse  power.  In  this  room  the  power  is  generated  by  five 
engine-driven  dynamos  with  a  total  capacity  of  l  ,800  kilo- 
watts or  3,000  horse  power.  These  generators  also  furnish 
the  current  for  the  7,000  incandescent  lamps. 


A  LONGSIDE  the  steam-driven  electric  giants  which  now 
furnish  the  power  at  Kodak  Park  stands  the  little  thirty- 
five  horse  power  Buckeye  engine  (in  foreground  of  illus- 
tration) which  twenty  years  ago  furnished  power  for  the 
entire  Eastman  plant.  It  has,  until  recently,  been  in  active 
service,  but  from  now  on  will  enjoy  its  well-earned  rest  in  a 
.model  engine  room. 


DENEATH  the  trap-doors  in  the  floor  are  the  great 
barrels  (shown  on  the  opposite  page)  which  hold,  alto- 
gether, 200,000  pounds  of  the  syrup-like  mixture  from  which 
the  film  base  is  made.  Technically,  this  is  known  as  cellu- 
lose nitrate  for  the  ordinary  film,  and  cellulose  acetate  for 
the  new  non-inflammable  film  now  being  used  for  moving 
pictures.  In  the  Kodak  Park  vernacular,  the  film  base  while 
in  this  semi-liquid  state  is  called  "Dope." 


TTHE  small  barrel  tells  the  story  of  the  volume  of  the  film 
business  in  1891.    It  had  a  capacity  of  500  pounds. 
Trie  present  barrels  hold  4,000  pounds  each,  and  fifty  of 
them  are  now  running  night  and  day. 


DERHAPS,  one  of  the  most  impressive  sights  in  the  works 
is  the  operation  of  the  overhead  traveling  cranes.  In  the 
roll-coating  building  is  one  of  these  cranes  with  a  45-foot  span 
and  a  capacity  of  twenty  tons,  three  electric  motors,  all  under 
control  of  one  operator,  giving  the  different  motions.  In 
addition,  are  two  smaller  cranes,  each  of  five  tons  capacity. 
The  crane  shown  in  the  illustration  is  one  of  those  having 
a  capacity  of  five  tons,  and  is  used  in  moving  the  tanks  of 
"dope"  to  and  from  the  mixers. 


""THE  acid  plant  can  hardly  be  called  one  of  the  show 
places  at  Kodak  Park,  but  in  its  bearing  upon  the  quality 
of  our  products  it  is  immensely  important.  The  sulphur- 
burning  furnaces  here  shown  mark  the  first  step  in  the 
manufacture  of  sensitized  silver  products — the  making  of 
the  sulphuric  acid,  which  in  combination  with  nitre  makes 
the  nitric  acid  with  which  the  silver  bullion  is  nitrated  for 
photographic  purposes. 


DAPER  storage  under  proper  conditions  is  an  important 
*  item  in  such  a  plant  as  this.  In  this  building  there  is 
storage  room  for  11,600  rolls — paper  enough,  41  inches 
wide,  to  reach  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco. 


■B 


""THE  manufacture  of  paper  boxes  for  papers  and  plates 
makes  a  big  industry  of  itself.  This  illustration  shows 
but  a  small  part  of  the  department,  which  has  a  capacity  of 
25,000  boxes  per  day.  In  addition,  we  make  millions  of 
envelopes  for  papers  in  dozens,  and  use  millions  of  folding 
cartons  for  films. 


:  i 


-  §!!i 

a 

mh! 

'  I  'HE  railroad  warehouse,  on  a  spur  from  the  New  York  Cen- 
tral,  is  large  enough  for  a  town  of  several  thousand 
inhabitants.  This  is  used  mostly  for  incoming  freight,  the 
outgoing  goods  being  shipped  from  the  State  Street  build- 
ings, except  glass  plates  in  car-load  lots  which  are  shipped 
directly  from  the  Park. 


QUR  construction  department  has  its  own  drafting  room, 
where  plans  for  special  buildings  and  machinery  are 
made  by  experts  who  know  the  peculiar  requirements  of  our 
business.  Owing  to  much  of  the  manufacturing  being  done  in 
dark  rooms,  ventilation  becomes  a  matter  of  prime  importance. 
In  the  roll-coating  building,  for  instance,  are  two  ventilating 
fans,  each  160  inches  in  diameter,  giving  a  complete  change 
of  air  every  seven  minutes.  Heating,  cooling,  and  ventilat- 
ing have  to  be  looked  to  with  the  utmost  care,  and  in  this 
work  our  construction  department  has  become  expert. 


^ARE  for  the  health,  safety,  and  comfort  of  our  employees 
is  one  of  the  first  considerations  at  all  of  our  plants. 
The  illustration  above  shows  one  of  the  two  dining-rooms  of 
approximately  the  same  size  which  are  in  a  separate  buildr 
ing  erected  for  the  purpose,  one  of  these  rooms  being  re- 
served for  the  men,  the  other  for  women.  Meals  are  served 
at  cost. 


J^OWN  the  passageways  to  the  right  of  these  time  clocks 
are  the  pay  booths,  and  all  so  conveniently  arranged  that 
the  2,000  Kodak  Park  employees  can  be  registered  out  and 
paid  off  in  ten  minutes. 


struction. 


HTHE  above  is  a  reproduction  from  the  architect's  draw- 
ing,  showing  the  new  plate  building  now  under  con- 
This  building  is  to  be  357  x  338  feet  and  will 
add  229,000  square 
feet  or  5  %  acres  to  the 
present  floor  space. 
It  will  have  a  coat- 
ing capacity  of  nearly 
\\  acres  of  glass  per 
day.  It  is  to  be  of 
reinforced  concrete 
construction,  faced  with 
brick,  and  will  be  the 
largest  single  building 
devoted  to  the  manu- 
facture of  photographic 
goods  in  the  world. 

mm 


EXCAVATING  FOR  THE  NEW 
PLATE  BUILDING 


'"p'HE  company  has  four  large  factories  in  Rochester  de- 
voted to  the  manufacture  of  cameras  and  accessories. 
This,  the  largest  of  the  four,  is  the  Kodak  factory  in  which 
there  are  on  the  average  more  than  one  thousand  employees. 
It  has  a  floor  area  of  nearly  three  and  a  quarter  acres,  while 
an  extension  now  under  construction  will  bring  it  up  to 
over  four  acres.  The  power  plant  has  a  capacity  of  450 
horse  power. 


HTHE  Century  Camera  and  Folmer  &  Schwing  divisions 
use  every  available  foot  of  the  48,000  square  feet  of 
floor  space  in  this  building,  the  growing  popularity  of  the 
Century  Professional  Apparatus,  the  increasing  use  of  Gra- 
flex  cameras  for  speed  work,  and  of  the  marvelous  Cirkut 
camera  making  it  one  of  the  busiest  of  the  busy  Eastman 
factories.  The  "Spirit  of  Doing  Things  Better"  is  instilled 
into  every  workman  and  the  result  is  "Century  Quality." 


•"THIS  is  the  home  of  the  Premo  Camera,  located,  by  the 
*  way,  directly  across  the  street  from  Convention  Hall,  and 
has  some  64.000  square  feet  of  floor  space,  200  employees, 
and  a  power  plant  of  250  horse  power. 


DOCHESTER'S  Convention 
Hall,  where  the  sessions  of 
the  Twenty-ninth  Annual  Con- 
vention of  the  Photographers* 
Association  of  America  were  held. 


ELSEWHERE  m 

This  is  a  booklet  of  Rochester,  the  City  Photographic, - 
but  'twould  be  incomplete  were  there  not  just  a  word  of 
the  Eastman  factories  elsewhere.  Rochester  is  most  em- 
phatically the  Eastman  headquarters,  but  the  Seed  plant 
at  St.  Louis,  with  its  splendidly  equipped  factory,  and  the 
Jamestown  works,  where  they  know  how  to  make  collo- 
dion paper,  must  not  be  overlooked.  Just  across  the  lake, 
in  Toronto,  is  another  important  part  of  the  concern,  where 
they  make  cameras  and  plates  and  papers  and  films  for 
the  great  and  growing  trade  of  our  sister  country  to  the 
north.  This  Canadian  manufactory  is  a  large  business  of 
itself,  employing  some  250  people,  and  occupying  modern 
buildings  having  a  floor  space  of  over  two  acres,  while  a 
new  building,  now  in  the  course  of  erection,  will  add 
seventy  per  cent,  to  the  capacity  of  the  plant.  ' 

In  Harrow,  England,  are  factories  that  are  second  only 
in  importance  to  those  at  Rochester,  the  principal  output 
being  plates  and  papers  for  the -European  trade.  The 

Harrow  factory  has 
over  five  acres  of 
floor  space  and  be- 
tween four  and  five 
hundred  employees. 
And  in  far-off  Mel- 
bourne the  Eastman 
goods  are  now  made 
in  Eastman  factories 
for  delivery  to  the 
photographers  of 
Australia,  New  Zea- 
land, and  the  South 
Sea  Islands. 

EASTMAN 
KODAK 
CO. 


THE  EASTMAN  PLANT  AS  IT  LOOKED 
IN  1889 


